Ex-communist Europe

Russia and Ukraine

On varieties of invasion

TANKS rolling across borders, territory seized, defending troops put to flight. That, for most people, is what the term “invasion” suggests. And something like that sequence of events seems to be in the minds of American and European leaders when they warn Vladimir Putin not to invade eastern Ukraine, nor to annex chunks of it, as Russia has annexed Crimea. This, I submit, is a dangerously narrow way to think about invasion, if also a temporarily convenient one.

To begin with, many invasions in history have not been motivated by the permanent acquisition of territory. Some have aimed to depose or punish a foreign country’s ruler, appropriate its assets or sway its politics: witness, most recently, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And if motives have always varied, so have invaders’ tactics. For example, American and other special forces have sometimes moved into targeted countries covertly, in advance of larger deployments; sometimes their presence has been officially denied. So the Kremlin’s techniques in Ukraine have precedents. All the same, they represent a departure in the technology of intervention.

The Russian troops menacingly encamped near Ukraine’s eastern border have not crossed it en masse. But Russia has infiltrated and undermined eastern Ukraine in more sophisticated—and just as effective—ways. This is not only a question of propaganda, pervasive and influential though that is: the scaremongering about a fascist takeover, invented tales of the persecution of Russian-speakers, and so on. There are credible reports of Russian security agents helping to foment the half-baked secessionist uprisings in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk. Russian Russians, as opposed to Russian Ukrainians, have been prominent in some of the troublemaking, which has involved the occupation of government buildings, the taking of hostages and wielding of weapons. (That supposedly local protesters in Kharkiv mistook the opera house for City Hall was kind of a giveaway.) Russian money seems also to have played a big part, along with funds allegedly derived from people close to Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s deposed and disgraced president, who has fled to Russia.

Has Russia invaded eastern Ukraine? It is useful for almost everyone to behave as if it hasn’t: the Russians themselves, obviously, but also the United States and the European Union. John Kerry robustly denounced what he described as Russia’s “illegal and illegitimate effort to destabilise a sovereign state,” shenanigans which, he said, might presage a military incursion—as if these were starkly defined categories. An old-fashioned, tanks and troops invasion would require the West to respond much more vigorously, and at much greater cost and risk to itself, than it has done so far, not least because its leaders have promised as much.

This is a diplomatic “red line” that (like most red lines) no one wants to admit Russia has crossed, unless boots and uniforms on the ground oblige them to. So long as those ominous troops remain on the Russian side of the border, the West probably won’t have to do that. But perhaps those Russian divisions should properly be thought of as a lavish decoy manoeuvre, usefully distracting attention and fear from the main event. Russian actions are already crippling Ukraine’s weak, fledgling government; large parts of the country’s territory are scarcely in that administration’s control; the Kremlin is set fair to disrupt, or perhaps prevent, the Ukrainian presidential election that is scheduled for next month. That is a level of influence—and by Mr Putin’s lights, success—that many old-fashioned invaders would have envied.

WWII was also a "regional adjustment to borders." The fact that Ukrainians in Crimea didn't want to commit suicide by resisting large numbers of very well trained and well armed Russian special forces doesn't make it right.

I have no problem with a population deciding to become autonomous. I have an issue with saying that a rushed referendum under the presence of armed military personal (which everyone but Russia believes were Russian, though it's academic for my point) can defensibly demonstrate the "Will of the People". If this was over the course of a longer period of time with international observers and neutral enforcement, I would concede your point. However, by annexing in this way, Russia loses moral high ground and raises tensions. Which is ironic, in a way, because I agree it's quite possible that the population of Crimera would fairly choose to re-join Russia and the prices that are going to be paid by all sides were quite unnecessary.

As soon as any article about Russia is written, an army of Russian propagandists will suddenly pop up and spam the blog with repetitive inane remarks. Lately they have taken to western sounding names as monikers to throw off the scent.
Same pattern can be observed about any articles written about Tibet/China. The blog will be spammed by Chinese bloggers.
I guess totalitarianism is the same everywhere.

I haven't invaded any countries myself, nor have I recommended such conduct, so, being "without sin," I really have no problem casting the first stone here.

It's kind of a stupid proverb as well. Everyone has done something wrong at some point in their lives. Does that mean, when you later see someone else do something wrong, you can never criticize it, but must remain silent? If that were true, no one could ever point at anything, no matter how horrible, and say "that is wrong."

I think "two wrongs don't make a right" is probably the more appropriate saw here, anyway.

When is the last time US anexed something? As far as I know they are out of Iraq since 2011 and about to leave from Afghanistan.
Anexation means an extention of the national territory, that means theft of land. It means Crimea is now shown on russian maps as part of Russia. That is the difference.

Donetsk hasn't decided to become autonomous or join another country. If a free and fair referendum were held there today, most polls indicate that a majority would vote to remain part of Ukraine.

What the majority of the people in Donetsk, or Kharkiv, or Lugansk actually want is of little interest to Vladimir Putin or his regime. He just wants the territory to satisfy his megalomaniacal ambitions.

I think if you're going to write fantasy-world nonsense for the Kremlin you might want to make it less absurd. Propaganda only works when there's a tiny grain of truth wrapped around the hard core of lies. Once you go into orbit with obvious nonsense, everyone stops paying attention to the noise and sees the truth. Which is, I think, not at all what you really want to happen with your bizarre ranting.

It's interesting how recent deliberate Moscow propaganda can be neutralised by an intelligent highly visible public initiative.

The President of the ALL-Ukrainian Jewish Congress Vadim Rabinovich, who has been nominated as one of the candidates in the current presidential elections campaign, held open consultations with leaders of all regional Jewish organisations in Ukraine regarding any known instances of anti-Semitism.

The open consultations took place this week in the presence of a team of Western European Jewish leaders, including visitors from Switzerland, Hungary, the UK and other countries. The guests received clear responses that no incidents of anti-Semitism have been noticed in any region.

As to what response can be expected from Moscow's AGITPROM agencies, - that's impossible to predict.

Russia has been slowly decaying for years. The strong growth that was reported in the past years (pre 2008) was not representative of the real situation that is going on there. Communist regimes are obsessed with image. This is why if you take a stroll down the center of Moscow, you will be amazed by the grand infrastructures, presence of expensive cars, high end bars and restaurants. If you decide however to take a trip outside of the city, 60 miles or so, you will find yourself in the 1950s. Wooden shacks, broken roads and slowly decomposing soviet are buildings. All the money Russia is making is sucked in by Moscow, some breadcrumbs land in St. Petersburg and the rest is just a joke.

Russia is not able to accept the fact that it has fallen behind. It is a "developing nation" which is not developing any more. Russian grown wobbles around the 1% mark and the economy is the size of Italy but with 2.5 times more population.

The only way for a falling nation who cant let go of its pride to keep some sort of moral going is to move focus elsewhere and what better place than a post soviet country with not a very stable government can there be.

If Russia will proceed with annexing parts of east Ukraine what would happen next? The assets of the industrially rich eastern regions of Ukraine would become worthless. Imports from the new regions would most likely be band. All the export dependant businesses would be paralyzed and half the people would lose their jobs (Doubt Russian can afford to subsidize 3 million people in its current state).

If Russia takes over these regions, the feeling of pride and patriotism would reawaken among the Russian people, however these feeling will most likely be short lived once the initial hype is over and they start felling the costs of their expansion first hand.

I really don't see any way Putin can come out of this as a winner. He can do a lot of damage to Ukraine in order to tickle his ego but in the end the damage he will do to himself and Russia will be far worse.

The west is doing everything it can to ignore the extent of Russia's actions because no one in their right mind wants stir up SH... just when it seems we are recovering from the 2008 SH... storm and a direct, fair response could really hurt everyone.

If Putin has even a bit of sanity left he will take Crimea and back off.

If you are stupid enough to believe all that shit about neo-Nazis in control of the interim Ukrainian government in Kiev then you are really in need of serious mental treatment. Watching and reading the Russian media, where the term impartiality is not part of its lexicon at all and whose the overall editor-in-chief is Emperor Putin I, you get the impression that a new Reich is emerging on the other side of the Russian border. This is certainly part of the Russian disinformation war. Even a lot of comments here come from some stinky hole across the street from the Kremlin. Putin knows too well the only way for him to stick to power is through lies, corruption and the subservience of a clique of corrupt sycophants. He knows no one in their right mind would ever shun western values and embrace wholeheartedly the Russian way of "democracy", I mean, unless under the threat of Russian tanks...

"
... uprising against a Democratically elected President," ...who turned out to be a corrupt crook and who is now hiding in his newly acquired mansion in suburban Moscow bought with millions of stolen money. You have not heard about his luxurious estate near Kyiv furnished with expensive art, his private zoo, his private golf club, etc.
Russia should be condemned for offering safe heaven for a politician wanted on charges of fraud, theft, treason, etc.

Emperor Putin I knows darn too well that, if given a choice, his fellow ethnic Russians everywhere, even in his personal property, Russia, would choose western values and governance. That is why it is easier for him to threaten to send his tanks into Ukraine. In his mind, brute force will always trump democracy. Typical for a old-style former KGB goon.